An explosion erupted Saturday morning near the boardwalk in Seaside Park, New Jersey, according to police sources.
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The incident remains an active investigation by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, said Brad Cohen, the special agent in charge of the FBI office in Newark. He says those in the area have been through a lot, with Superstorm Sandy and its aftermath, and now the bomb blast. No injuries or damage to surrounding structures were reported.
Federal and state law enforcement agencies were deployed to investigate the scene, including officials from the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the state police bomb squad and the county prosecutor’s office, Della Fave said. MacArthur says that person needs to be “tracked down and brought to justice”.
The garbage can contained several “pipe bomb-type devices” wired together, Fave said.
Whitaker declined further comment, citing the ongoing investigation.
However, State Police bomb technicians have rendered safe items located in the same trash can in which the explosion occurred.
The explosion occurred around 9:30 a.m.in a trash can along the route of the Seaside Semper Fi 5K run, which was scheduled to start at 9 a.m.
A charity 5K race was cancelled because of the explosion and subsequent search, according to the race website.
Authorities said the lag in the start of the race, reportedly because of late registrations, proved fortuitous, as the bomb went off before runners were on the race course.
The Semper Five charity run was organised to benefit military veterans and the families of those lost in military service.
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Asked if Marines and their families had been targeted, Della Fave said, “I think we can assume that, considering the location of the device right along the run route where, if it was just a matter of minutes in terms of difference, there would have been a good number of people running past that explosive device”. Some other community events went on as planned in nearby towns on Saturday, though officials said security at those sites had been stepped up in the wake of the blast. It was no immediate clear whether the second device was detonated.
